Eric Abetz says having to apply for one job in the morning and one in the afternoon was not too much to ask. Photograph: Mike Bowers

Business groups have raised concerns the Abbott government’s plan to force unemployed people to apply for 40 jobs each month could lead to a deluge of poorly targeted applications.

The opposition and business groups suggested targeted employment searches would be a more effective goal for all parties, while the Greens accused the government of being out of touch with the plight of the unemployed.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s director of employment, education and training, Jenny Lambert, said she understood the government had set the job search target to encourage activity.

But Lambert wanted further talks with the government about whether the 40 number was appropriate, or whether there could be better assistance through employment services about the type of applications being submitted.

“There may be another way of doing it that’s not about numbers,” she said.

“What we don’t want to do is to flood the business community with a whole range of job applications just for the sake of people fulfilling their requirements. That would not be a good outcome for anybody; we’ve got to get the balance right between getting job seekers more proactive about their applications and ensuring employers receive good quality applications about what the person brings to the job.”

The Business Council of Australia also welcomed aspects of the employment services plan, but said it was “concerned about the practicality of asking people to apply for 40 jobs each month in the current softening labour market”.

“It would be better to allow jobseekers to concentrate their efforts towards applying for the jobs they have the best chance of acquiring,” said the group’s chief executive, Jennifer Westacott.

“The proposed increased focus on rewarding job outcomes is positive a step, but some of the outcome payments – such as a payment at four weeks” employment – don’t match up with what we know about sustainable employment outcomes.

“We need a job services system built on evidence about what really works. The ‘work for the dole’ scheme needs to avoid the well-known risks that such participation actually makes people less likely to move off welfare and must lead to meaningful jobs for people.”

Anglicare Australia’s acting executive director, Roland Manderson, said pushing people into low-paid, short-term work, or merely applying for jobs they could not win, was not the solution.

Manderson voiced support for the extension of wage subsidies to young people and the long term unemployed, but said there were barriers to employment that a one size fits all approach did not recognise.

“As people with disability or an illness, or the old or the young will tell you: far too often the jobs aren’t there,” he said. “In that case, requiring people to work for the dole and apply for 40 jobs a month is merely a pathway to demoralisation. A better approach is to work with employers to create jobs with a long term future and then support the jobseeker into them while they get going.”

The employment minister, Eric Abetz, said having to apply for one job in the morning and one in the afternoon was not too much to ask, but there would be exemptions “in certain circumstances”. He said the job service provider would help the jobseeker to properly target their applications.

Asked by the ABC whether being rejected from 40 jobs a month could harm people’s confidence, Abetz said: “Well, I could ask the other way around. What does it do a person’s self-esteem, physical and mental health if we as a society were to say to them, ‘Poor you, you don’t have employment and we won’t require you to look for employment’?”

Abetz added that there were “a lot of employment opportunities … that are being undertaken by backpackers and 457 visa holders”.

Labor’s employment spokesman, Brendan O’Connor, said the government was “tearing up” the principles of mutual obligation in the light of its budget decision to withdraw Newstart payments from young people for months at a time.

A spokesman for Hartsuyker last month confirmed the 40-job-search requirement would apply even during the six months for which young jobseekers lost their Newstart payments as a result of the “earning or learning” budget decision.

“During the six-month waiting period, young job seekers would be required to attend appointments with their employment-service provider and look for 40 jobs a month,” the spokesman said last month.

O’Connor said the withdrawal of Newstart payments, which faces opposition in the Senate, could lead to antisocial behaviour and homelessness.

“What’s most concerning about the changes being proposed by the government is that they seek to have those young jobseekers under the age of 30 being provided no support whatsoever for the first six months and yet would require them to look for 40 jobs a month – 40 jobs in about 30 days, more than one job a day and yet provide not one cent,” O’Connor said.

“So it won’t matter whether a jobseeker under 30 is looking every day, every week, every month for six months this government believes that they can require them to undertake obligations of job search and job activities and yet not provide any support whatsoever.”

The Australian Council of Trade Unions described work for the dole as a “punitive” scheme and argued the government’s employment plans failed to put enough emphasis on outcomes – particularly delivering long-term jobs.

The Greens leader, Christine Milne, said the 40-application requirement was “ridiculous” when the jobs were not available, particularly in rural and regional Australia, and the government was out of touch. “I just can’t help but think that people sitting in Canberra on a deckchair outside smoking a cigar telling a young unemployed person in Burnie, Tasmania, ‘you apply for 40 jobs’, well, where?”